1959 Mosul uprising
The Mosul uprising was an attempted coup by Arab nationalist officers against the government of Abd al-Karim Qasim and Abd al-Salam Arif in the Republic of Iraq in March 1959. The coup plotters failed because of poor planning and a lack of support from the armed forces. After the putschists' control of the city collapsed, violent clashes broke out between various ethnic groups in Mosul.
background
After the abolition of the monarchy in the coup d'état of 1958 , Generals Arif and Qasim assumed central power in the young Republic of Iraq . Arif tried to strengthen his position of power by working with the communists at the expense of the Arab nationalists. This led to a cabinet crisis in February 1959, when the nationalist ministers left the government in protest against communist influence. In order to contain the power potential of the mostly nationalist officer corps, Arif planned the creation of a people's militia , which should be led by communist cadres. Qasim also made enemies of many officers by turning them over in favor of loyal officers. In the course of his collaboration with the communists, Arif supported the mass assembly of the peace partisans , a left-wing organization. This mobilized 250,000 demonstrators in Mosul to mark the anniversary of its founding on March 6, 1959. The violent acts between nationalists and communists that took place on the following day gave the putschists an opportunity to strike. The head of the movement was the Sunni garrison commander of Mosul Abdel Wahhab asch-Schawaf. He was supported by sections of the city's Sunni Arab wealthy as well as the local branch of the Shammar Tribal Confederation .
course
On March 8, 1959, Ash Shawaf proclaimed a revolt against the government in Baghdad. On the same day putschists made an unsuccessful attempt to bomb the radio station in Baghdad . The delivery of a radio station to Mosul, originally promised by the United Arab Republic, no longer reached the coup plotters. On March 9, 1959, Arif ordered the Air Force to bomb Ash-Shawaf's headquarters in Mosul. Ash Shawaf was wounded in the attack and shot dead in the hospital where he was seeking care. The coup plotters were supported by the United Arab Republic through propaganda. The hopes of the putschists that army units in other parts of the country would join forces after the takeover of power in Mosul, however, did not come true.
consequences
After the collapse of the putschists, the Shammar tribesmen withdrew to the countryside. Both Kurdish irregulars and the communists used the resulting power vacuum to take revenge. During the anarchy, some wealthy Sunni families were pillaged and murdered. There were also acts of violence against the Christian minority. The government of Arif and Qasim was able to crush the coup, but its stability was tested again by an assassination attempt by the Ba'ath party on Qasim in October 1959. The power position of the communists was strengthened; in April of that year they organized a mass demonstration in Baghdad with around one million participants.